Niall Ó Brolcháin (Green Party)

I make a serious point concerning the quality of Irish food. We must focus on that quality in this country because while we cannot compete with the huge monocultures of very large countries elsewhere, such as Brazil, we can compete in the high quality of locally produced food.

I refer again to what Senator Prendergast said. The Green Party is taking a very proactive approach in encouraging organic food, farmers' markets and locally produced food. These should be linked to local restaurants and schools. I stress the latter because it is very important we educate people about food production. Sheep farming in Connemara was brought to my attention, for example. We want to encourage Connemara lamb as a product. I mentioned before that some of the carpets in this House were manufactured in Connemara although they cannot be made there now. Increasingly, sheep farmers have an older profile and are in their 50s. Young farmers are not going into this type of farming.

We need a very strong educational programme in schools. When he was Minister of State, Deputy Sargent, who preceded the present Minister of State, Deputy Cuffe - I am mixing up my Deputies and Ministers - put in place a very strong programme of growing food in schools. He also made significant progress in putting farmers' markets in place. Allotments make up another very important campaign. Increasingly, people are moving to the cities and Ireland has become more urbanised. As a result, many people simply do not know how to plant a seed and watch it grow. It is very important, therefore, that young people are educated from an early age in how a simple thing such as growing a sunflower or any other type of food actually works.

The Green Party very much wants to promote organic food and has a target for us to reach 5% organic production in the not too distant future. It is very important we produce high quality organic food and that is the policy of the Government. I would like to see much more money being put into organic food production. In the past, subsidies were put into non-organic or genetically modified food, but we must value and prioritise organic and sustainable food.

The IFA is highlighting grass-based food production which is the right way ahead. As one who worked in the dairy industry, I saw non-grass based milk production, for example, in the United Kingdom. Our production of cheese and milk products is something we can see and export to the highest possible standards. We do not take enough cognisance of this and do not value it as much as we should. I propose high quality organic food production.

Senator Joe O'Toole mentioned windmills and we should look to supplementing farm incomes with non-farm activities. It is very important that we look to underpin rural people so they can make incomes not just from food production or farming, which is increasingly difficult. We should encourage community energy production in a big way as there is not enough of it. We might only be talking about rainwater collection systems or windmills, which would produce wind for specific farms.

Anaerobic digestion and bio-gas production can also be increased in the country. Currently there is zero production of bio-gas but in countries like Germany, a significant level of renewable energy is produced through bio-gas. The Cathaoirleach is nodding so I will end on time.